Persieds To Be HUGE This Year!!!

[K5TEN]

From Spaceweather.com:

This year's Perseid meteor shower could be even better than usual. "A filament of comet dust has drifted across Earth's path and when Earth passes through it, sometime between 0800 and 0900 UT (1 - 2 am PDT) on August 12th, the Perseid meteor rate could surge to twice its normal value," says Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office. The following profile is based on the debris stream models of veteran forecasters Jeremie Vaubaillon and Mikhail Maslov:

The filament was shed by Perseid parent comet Swift-Tuttle in the year 1610, and this is one of Earth's first encounters with it. "In addition," notes Cooke, "the main Perseid debris stream, which we run into every year, may be denser than normal due to a gravitational enhancement by Saturn. The total combination of these effects could result in as many as 200 meteors per hour (ZHR)."

6M and 10M should be HOPPING--with a peak on August 12th. the 11th and 13th and 14th should be hot as well.

REMEMBER: on MS the "pingers" give you a maximum of of 45 seconds (usually less, depending on the size, angle, and location of the meteor). These entities are usually the size of a grain of sand and are the leftovers of ancient comet's tails. Especially on ten meters, make your contacts almost contest style, because that's about all the time you will have.

If you don't get the call in that time frame, count it as a busted contact and move on. MS is like the lottery, sometimes you win and sometimes you don't.

If you are a member of 10-10 International, It will be a stretch to get the call, name, and state---but it CAN be done.

Good Luck!!

CU on 10M

Bruce

[K5TEN]

Yesterday I spent a couple of hours homebrewing a 6M dipole for the Persieds MS. I was out in 100 F heat sweating profusely to get it in the air and came inside and tested it out. I tuned to 50.125 and waited.....and waited...and waited. Persieds was a wash in Central Arkansas. DXCentral.com had logged spots with NW stations working in to CA and NE stations working into FL and upper MW stations working into FL and the Bahamas...but we got stiffed.

Might be better tonight?

CU on 6

73



Bruce